He criticized the UFC’s marketing department and ripped into lightweight king Rafael dos Anjos for leaving Brazil to live in the U.S.

If anyone was still wondering whether the Irish featherweight champion carries a big stick around the UFC these days, Wednesday’s UFC 197 press conference settled it.

McGregor makes the company money, and that gives him a lot of power.

There have been plenty of critics wondering why McGregor was allowed to keep his featherweight belt while going up a weight class to fight dos Anjos for the lightweight title. Was he throwing his weight around and forcing the UFC to give him what he wanted?

It’s possible McGregor’s star power will one day lead to conflicts with UFC brass, but president Dana White insisted that wasn’t going on this time around.

“Conor has kept his word on everything he says he’d do,” White said. “He has done everything he said he would do since the day he stepped foot in here. He said he’ll fight four times in a year and he really likes the money.”

If McGregor is going to fight four times in a year, that likely means he’ll be tapped to headline UFC 200 in July and will probably be defending his feathereweight belt against Frankie Edgar, the No. 1 contender in the 145-pound division and a guy McGregor called “desperate” Wednesday.

First, though, he’ll have to get through dos Anjos. The lightweight champion has trucked every opponent who has been put in front of him over the past couple years, most recently earning a first-round finish over Donald Cerrone in their December title fight.

It was enough to convince most fight fans the Brazilian will be sticking around with the belt for a while, but apparently not McGregor.

“As far as finishes go it was one of the worst finishes I’ve ever seen,” McGregor said. “That wasn’t a TKO, that wasn’t a finish. Cerrone quit in there.”

From there, McGregor went off, with the main topic of conversation being dos Anjos’ decision to leave Brazil to work and train full-time at California’s Kings MMA gym.

“He will never step off a plane in his home country of Brazil and receive a hero’s welcome,” McGregor said. “This guy, in Brazilian lingo, is a gringo and that is the truth.

“I want to give back to the country of Brazil. On March 5, I will behead Rafael dos Anjos and I will drag his head through a parade on the streets of Rio de Janeiro. It will be a national holiday.”

For his part, dos Anjos mostly rolled his eyes at the whole act. Former featherweight champion Jose Aldo was clearly affected by McGregor’s antics in the lead-up to their title fight at UFC 194, but dos Anjos seems better equipped to roll with the verbal punches.

“For me, it doesn’t make sense,” dos Anjos said. “The whole world has American dreams and in this country we have people from all over the world. We have Irish, we have Brazilians. Those people don’t deserve to be called traitors.”

NO BAD BLOOD

McGregor’s big personality tends to relegate other fighters to the background at these press conferences, and it was easy to forget on Wednesday that UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm was there promoting her fight with Miesha Tate as well.

They did provide a nice contrast to the McGregor show, though, as they spent most of their time on the microphone saying nice things about one another.

“It’s just a different kind of feeling leading into this fight,” Tate said when asked to compare the build-up to the two times she fought Ronda Rousey. “I’m a fan of respectfulness and I think Holly is a true sportsman.”

EIGHT FIGHTS FOR PUNK?

There are plenty who don’t believe former WWE superstar Phil ‘CM Punk’ Brooks is ever going to actually fight in the UFC, but Brooks is going ahead with making some grand promises.

“I can’t honestly answer how many (fights) I’m gonna have,” brooks told the U.K. Sun. “We’ll wait and see how the first one goes but it’s gonna be eight, at least.”

Brooks is training with Roufusport in Milwaukee and it’s recently been suggested by UFC brass that he’ll likely be making his debut at UFC 199 in June.

AROUND THE OCTAGON

While the UFC was forced to cancel its March pay-per-view card in Rio de Janeiro, it’s lined up a nice little headliner for UFC Fight Night 87 in Brazil. The exact time and location haven’t been announced, but the main event will see Brazilian middleweight contenders Vitor Belfort and Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza square off. Don’t be surprised if the winner gets a title shot ... B.J. Penn has formally come out of retirement and it sure looks like he’ll be matched up with Nik Lentz at some point. The two have developed a weird rivalry while Penn has been retired ... After including Bruce Lee as a playable character in the first UFC video game, the company announced Wednesday that gamers will be able to play as Mike Tyson in UFC 2, which is scheduled for a release this spring.

McGregor Show on full display during UFC 197 press event

He criticized the UFC’s marketing department and ripped into lightweight king Rafael dos Anjos for leaving Brazil to live in the U.S.

If anyone was still wondering whether the Irish featherweight champion carries a big stick around the UFC these days, Wednesday’s UFC 197 press conference settled it.

McGregor makes the company money, and that gives him a lot of power.

There have been plenty of critics wondering why McGregor was allowed to keep his featherweight belt while going up a weight class to fight dos Anjos for the lightweight title. Was he throwing his weight around and forcing the UFC to give him what he wanted?

It’s possible McGregor’s star power will one day lead to conflicts with UFC brass, but president Dana White insisted that wasn’t going on this time around.